Luke Altmyer left a referee with tire marks all over his face during Tuesday’s bowl game.
The senior quarterback Altmyer and Illinois squared off against Tennessee in the Liberty Mutual Music City Bowl. On a 1st-and-10 play in the third quarter at Nissan Stadium in Nashville, Tenn., Altmyer could not find anyone open to throw to, so he decided to tuck it and run.
Altmyer found some daylight in the middle of the field with no one in the area … well, no one except for a referee. The 6-foot-2, 215-pound quarterback flattened the poor ref, knocking him to the ground and then continuing to run for another handful of yards like nothing had even happened.
Here is the hilariously unfortunate video.
Luke Altmyer – 1
— DraftKings (@DraftKings) December 31, 2025
Referee – 0pic.twitter.com/D2PfI5KOhR
The 23-year-old Altmyer was 20/33 for 196 passing yards and one passing touchdown, and he also added 10 rushes for 54 more yards and one more touchdown. Illinois needed every bit of that production as well as they just barely squeaked out a 30-28 victory over Tennessee on a game-winning field goal by kicker David Olano as time expired.
Meanwhile, it has been a pretty tough year for referees in college football. You may recall it was just a month ago that a Michigan player headbutted a referee in the middle of a game too.
